Chlorine, Caps and Crazy
by laffingincircles
Summary: School, and the accompanying homework and hormones seemed hard enough to Alice. Throw in swim meets, crazy team members, rival teams, and best times and this year promises to be one wild ride. Genderbend and School AU  Rated T mostly for Lovi's mouth.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Allo! And so begins the crazy. :D Thanks for taking the time to read my fic. It's my first one, so I would really appreciate constructive crit and such. Main pairings will probably be USUK, Spamano, and PruCan, with other pairings in there.

Warnings: Swim team jargon, genderbending, gakuen AU, Lovi's mouth.

Enjoy!

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><p>Alice smiled as she stepped out of the girl's locker room, and into her little corner of paradise. She took a breath of the chlorine soaked, humidified air and smiled. It had been too long since she was last here, months since the last practice of the high school swim season. The pool area was quiet, as she was the first one on deck, her 6th period being closest to the pool, and their coach off somewhere else at the moment. Her peace was quickly spoiled when a particularly obnoxious person tackled her from behind.<p>

"Alice! Hey! Guess what I had for lunch today!"

"A hamburger." She turned to glare at the blond boy behind her.

"How'd ya know?" he looked at her in shock.

"Alfred, I knew because you eat a bloody hamburger every day. Probably the only reason you aren't a gigantic tub of lard is the fact that you swim." Alice poked her friend in the middle, and chuckled a little at his hurt look.

"Awww, Ally! That wasn't nice. Anyways, I'm the hero! That means I can't get fat!" Alfred said, puffing out his chest in pride.

"Don't call me Ally, my name is Alice. A, L, I, C, E. And..." her statement was interrupted as the other swimmers started to filter into the pool area a few people at a time. Soon enough the entire 7th period swim team was present, and most were chattering away about their summers and the first day of school, schedules and who the new freshman would be. Elizabeta was protecting the girl's locker room from Gilbert with her AP Biology book, as her frying pan had purportedly been taken away by a teacher earlier that day. Heracles, as always, was asleep on the bleachers. Alice smiled at the familiar antics of her team. She had missed them over the summer. The noise was cut through by a bellow from the far end of the pool.

"Quiet! All of you! Now go sit on the bleachers, and minimal talking! _Gott _knows I will never get you to completely shut up. Your new coach and I will be out in a minute with the new members to this period." said Coach Beilschmidt, sticking his head out of the door of his office.

The teens turned and sat on the bleachers and continued chattering, though quieter now, not wanting to risk the wrath of their formidable German coach.

"Ally, Ally, do you know who the new coach is?" Alfred bounced up and down on the bleachers next to Alice.

"Please stop bouncing, you git! You're shaking the whole bleacher. You're bugging me, and most certainly bothering the rest of the team." Alice let out an exasperated sigh, "Anyway, how should I know? I didn't even know we had a new coach until Coach said so just now." The American stared at Alice in disbelief.

"How? Coach sent an email out, like, weeks ago!" Alice's only response to Alfred's remark was to glare at him.

"I heard the new coach is the _grand-__père _of some new girls." Francis, a junior, scooted over to Alice, intruding uncomfortably on her personal space. "But who cares about him? I'm more interested in the freshman." He waggled his eyebrows at the English teen.

"Bloody frog. No molesting the freshmen." Alice glared at the French teen. She remembered her first day of swim team, freshman year. Francis had welcomed her alright, with no regard to the concept of personal bubble. At all.

"Yeah Francis! No molesting the freshman, 'cause my twin sister is coming here today and if you touch her..." Alfred trailed off and shook a fist in his direction.

"Wait, Alfred? You have a twin?" Alice raised an eyebrow at him, somehow she had managed to miss that bit of information.

"Yep! But she lives in Canada, so I never get to see her. Well, almost never. But dad said she could come live with me and mom for the last three years of high school, he has some science-y thing he's doing in Antarctica. I think. Anyways, it's something about polar bears. So Francis - no touching!"

"Me? Molest the new kids? Non, ma Cherie! Just introducing them to the wonders of l'amour." Francis laughed, and shook his head at the girl next to him, "Anyways, you should be careful not to scare them off with those horrendous eyebrows of yours."

"My eyebrows are perfectly fine, damnit!" Alice yelled, glaring at the Frenchman.

"Alice. What did I say about volume level?" Alice paled as she turned to look at her coach behind her, and stammered out an apology. He nodded curtly at her, then went on to attract the attention of the rest of the swim team.

"This is your new coach, Mr. Vargas. You may call him Coach Vargas."

"Don't be silly! You can call me Coach Roma, or Roma or Vargas or whatever you want to! I hope we have a happy and crazy fun swim year, and have everyone in the right events so it's heaven!" some of the kids looked a little startled at their new coach's assertion that swim team would be heaven this year, but other smiled and laughed, already predicting that even if swim team wasn't quite heavenly, it would certainly be more interesting.

"And now let's introduce ourselves, si? Two of them are mi nipoti so let's all be nice!" Coach Roma beamed at them as he beckoned a small group of people to come across the deck. "Now we should go in a circle and say our name, something we love and what events we swim. I'll start us off!"

"My name is Coach Roma and I love love love food and wine and coaching adorable little high schoolers! I used to swim freestyle sprints, but I'm too old for that now." The man laughed and continued on "Now, how about… you go next!" His finger swung around wildly and landed on one of the new girls, who let out a startled noise when she saw the finger in front of her face.

"A-ah, hello. My name is Mattie Williams, I'm a sophomore, I swim distance and breaststroke events. Oh, and I really like maple syrup. And polar bears." The blond girl fidgeted with the end of one of her ponytails. Alice smiled to herself, glad there was another distance swimmer, other than her and Ludwig.

"Hi Mattie! I haven't seen you in foreeeeeeevvvvvvveeeeerr! How's Canada little sis?" Alice cringed as Alfred shouted in her ear.

"Hi Alfred…" the girl looked resigned, as if she had expected it, but had hoped he wouldn't do all the same. The rest of the team exchanged looks with each other, Alfred had a sister? Who knew?

Despite the fact the team was in a quiet uproar introductions continued. The next to go was an Italian girl with a very big smile. "Hello! My name is Feliciana, I'm a freshman and I love pasta! It's the best thing in the world, ve~! Oh, and I'm a sprinter. I love to swim fast almost as much as I love pasta!" the girl bounced as she talked, a wild curl on her head bobbing along with her.

After Feliciana a considerably grumpier girl introduced herself as Lovina, also a freshman and Feliciana's older twin sister, while glaring at anyone who dared make eye contact.

"Lovi! You really should be more behaved." Coach Vargas pouted at his granddaughter.

"Screw it nonno. I don't have to be polite to these bastards." Lovina recrossed her arms and transferred her glare to her grandfather.

"Lovi! Language!" the older man sighed, and continued on with introducing people, "Kiku! How about you go next?"

"Ah, hai. Nice to meet you. My name is Kiku Honda and I usually swim breaststroke events." The Asian girl bowed at the rest of the team.

"Ah, well then. We need people to mentor to the four new members of our team and help them get used to the way our team works. After I assign those we will get back to introductions." Alice shrank back slightly, she didn't really feel like being responsible for a new swimmer, especially since she wasn't the most social of people. She got along with new books better than new people. Sadly, when she looked at the members of her team she was among the few responsible ones.

"Elizabeta? Could you mentor Mattie?" Coach Beilschmidt asked the team manager, ignoring Alfred's waving hand. Alice merely sighed in relief. One down, three to go.

"Sure thing Coach." The junior beckoned the Canadian over towards where she was sitting on the bleachers.

"And Ludwig? If you could mentor Feliciana?" The sophomore's cheeks were dusted a light pink as he waved the overly cheerful girl to where he was sitting. Alice chuckled quietly, she had never thought anybody could crack the human stone that was Ludwig Beilschmidt.

"Heracles, would you mentor – ehh. Could someone, er, wake him up?" Alfred poked Heracles hard in the side, which earned him a sleepy blink and a questioning glance. Their coach sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You. Kiku. Mentoring."

The sophomore muttered a sleepy affirmative and beckoned the Asian girl over.

"Now Lovina, your mentor will be Alice."

_Oh bollocks._


	2. Chapter 2

Hey! So sorry for this being this late... I mean to update at least once a week... but time got away from me these past two weeks or so (beware! muffin cravings are _incredibly_ distracting) and I rewrote this one after I had written the whole chapter already XD. Anyvays, here's the new chapter, please enjoy and review, they make strangely bouncy :D

-Laff

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><p>The rest of the week had gone downhill from there. Alice's awkward attempts at befriending Lovina had either been ignored or turned away by the younger girl's wickedly sharp tongue. She sighed as she remembered the worst time.<p>

Alice had approached Lovina on a particularly bad day of the month, and the girl had whirled on her as soon as she had greeted her and had cut Alice down with a surprising number of rather creative insults. She couldn't say she had ever been called a stick-up-her-arse, tea-loving bastard of a fairy and a unicorn. She also couldn't say she had ever been insulted in Italian before, the words had been incomprehensible to her, but the tone clear enough at the time. Alice winced internally, but her mother's voice shook her out of her reverie.

"Alice, love, hurry up. The team party at the park will be starting soon, we should go." Alice startled a little bit, and got up to head downstairs, fluffing up the unicorn she had been petting and placing it gently on her bed. At least it was a nice day, the thin wisps of clouds stood against the startling blue sky, an unusual phenomenon for autumn in Seattle.

"Coming, mum!" Alice wasn't particularly excited about the thing at the park. It was a 'team-bonding' experience and required social skills and the actual want to talk to other people. The year before they had played a version of hide-and-seek after dark and she had hidden in a bush, the branches had scratched against her arms and face, and the awkward squat she was in started to burn her thighs after a few minutes. Alice hadn't heard the call of 'olly-olly-oxen-free' and had stayed hidden until Alfred found her, wanting to show her the so-called 'amazing' ice cream cone he had created.

So she didn't really enjoy this specific swim team tradition. But she went anyway.

"Goodbye, Mum. Love you!" Alice called as she turning to walk into the park. It was a nice enough place, full of stands of evergreen trees that towered above her, but still let in plenty of sunlight. There were a few covered areas for eating, tables underneath already filling up with people from her swim team. She had gone about 2 feet towards them when she was tackled by an overexcited American.

"Bloody hell, Alfred!" She whacked her friend over the head in retaliation for startling her, "Haven't you ever heard of greeting someone normally?"

"But I missed you Ally!" the teen whined, still glomping her despite Alice's repeated attempts to get him to go away, "Plus you're adorable in that unicorn shirt!"

Alice spluttered, turning a rather fantastic shade of red at the last comment.

"Aww Ally! You're so red!" Alfred let her go and turned in the direction of the grill area, "Well, Imma go get a burger of the grill. Ya want one?"

"It's I'm a not Imma, you bugger. And why would I want of your horridly greasy hamburgers anyway?" Alice glared and crossed her arms over her chest.

"'Cause they're AWESOME!" Alfred shouted, which was twice as loud as a normal person's yell. He called it his 'awesome hero voice'. Alice called it 'bloody annoying'.

"Whatever Alfred." She turned away from him as he dashed off in the direction of the covered area which housed the grill.

Scowling at the ground, Alice tried to understand the reason for the furious blush that had arisen earlier.

_I've never done that before and he's been tackling me since I was in 7th grade. I should be used to it, not blushing like some girl in a rubbish romance. It couldn't be that I like the blighter. That's impossible. Completely. Absolutely. Right?_

Alice was starting to sound a bit desperate, even in her mind. Thankfully, her train of thought was interrupted. Sadly, the one who interrupted it was definitely not Alice's favorite person.

"Hello frog." She smacked his hand away from her bum, as he had stretched it out for a grope.

"Bonjour, ma cheri! Looking… good. As always." Francis cocked an eyebrow, pointedly staring at her unicorn shirt and black team sweatpants.

"Oh shut up, you prat. Unicorns are a perfectly reasonable thing for a 15 year old to wear." Alice looked around desperately for something to distract Francis with, so he (and his increasingly skeptical stare) would go elsewhere. Her eye alighted on something uniquely suited for the task, "Francis? Isn't that Gilbert over there?"

"Yes it is, mon cher. Why do you – Mon Dieu! Gilbert! Hold on!" Francis rushed off to the aid of his friend, who was currently being attacked by an irate Elizabeta, who had pulled out her frying pan from who-knows-where. Alice decided it was best not to ask and started giggling at the bizarre sight of Gilbert hiding behind Francis while the French teen tried to distract the furious girl. She spun around, planning on finding Alfred and telling him of the incredibly amusing event currently taking place on one of the open soccer fields and didn't notice when she ran into someone.

"Ah, sorry, I didn't see you there." Alice looked at the girl in front of her. She looked rather like a faded version of Alfred, as if someone had taken him and diluted with him with water, leaving fainter colors behind, except for her brilliant purple eyes.

"It's okay, it happens sometimes." The girl glanced up at her, a small smile playing at her lips.

"Mattie, right? I'm Alice. Pleasure to meet you." Alice stuck her hand out for the Canadian teen to shake, slightly surprised by the girl's strong grip. She was still a little edgy around the other girl though, as this was the part in the conversation where things usually disintegrated.

"Pleasure's all mine Alice. I've heard a lot about you from Alfred. We exchanged emails a lot while I lived in Canada with my dad." Mattie smiled as she thought back, "Somehow, he even manages to be loud over email."

Alice laughed at that, the ice truly broken between the two, and they proceeded to launch into retellings of ridiculous things Alfred had done over the years. Mattie had a fair share from his younger years, including one when he tried to eat a plastic burger because she had convinced him it was real. It had taken Alice a few minutes to stop laughing after that one, and by the time she had caught her breath Alfred was back from the grill area.

"The hero is back from his epic burger quest!" Alfred displayed the burger proudly, despite the fact that the endless number of toppings he had put on it were dropping off at an alarming rate.

"Alfred, how the hell are you going to eat that? Without choking?" the English girl looked slightly disturbed by the slab of beef on a bun, and how tall it was.

"Me? Choke? No way. But it's nice to know that you worry." Alfred teased, laughing as Alice denied it all. He glanced up and caught sight of his sister, "Whoa! Hey Mattie!"

"Hey Al." Mattie smiled at him, poking him in the belly, "You know, it's not good for you to eat too many hamburgers…"

"Mattie!" he whined, "Not you too!"

Alice and Mattie both burst out laughing at the look on his face, a combination of righteous indignation and puppy dog eyes that was just plain hilarious. Mattie's giggles cut short as she glimpsed a group of people in the parking lot all dressed in purple and white sweats.

"Alfred, who are they?" his sister pulled at his sleeve to drag his attention away from the hamburger he was eating. Alice glanced over and her eyes widened.

"What the bleedin' hell are they doing here?"


End file.
